Selecting Business For Long Term


Selecting Businesses for Long Term


Businesses as a whole can be classified into 2 categories.

1)      Price Competitive Business

2)      Durable Competitive Business 


Price Competitive Business: Price competitive businesses are ones where the consumer chooses to purchase goods or services from the company based on the price they offer it for.

Ex. Metals, Airlines


Durable Competitive Business: Durable competitive businesses are ones where the consumer chooses to purchase goods or services from the company based on the quality without worrying much for the price they offer it for.

Ex. Food Industries

Sartorial Analysis

Banking and Finance

Banking and Finance is the backbone of any country.  People, Industries and the Government, everyone is in need of credits. The lower interest rates will also increase the credit demand moving forward, therefore allowing banks to increase their profitability.  These are very sensitive to Country’s Economy. During economic boom or a recession Banking and Finance generally are the first one to take it on their chins  


Information Technology

IT sector further can be diversified into two, one which manufactures products and the other which provides services. Manufacturing sort of company becomes a price competitive business because companies will have to offer products at cheaper rates which will weigh on their profit margins. Ex. (Phone Companies, Laptop Companies, etc). There can also be certain exceptions like Microsoft or Apple (Both Apple and Microsoft have Price competitive advantage as there is very less or no competition). The second part is one which provides services. If the quality of the services provided is good then the clients will be ready to pay for the same, therefore in turn it helps the company to expand their profit margins. But exception is that too much competition can will restrict companies from expanding margins (Ex. TCS, Infy, etc)


Airlines

Airlines are a price competitive business. When people want fly out to any place by plane first they look for price of the tickets. There is a lot of competition among the airline companies to offer tickets at a cheaper rate so that they can attract more customers. This in turn will weigh very largely on company’s profitability. Even during oil price booms these company’s cannot expand their profitability due to this competition. Therefore these company’s show very less or almost no growth.


Automobiles

Automobiles are cyclical sector. There won’t be consistency in their profitability in the short term, but over a long period of time these company’s tend to grow due to sales growth. These companies usually will have to spend more on R&D and also slightly affected by the competition, but over long term sales growth will help in to increase the profitability. This sector will generally tend to saturation in well developed countries; they are better bets in developing countries.


Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals are defensive sector. The sector will be very consistent in terms of growth. The company needs to spend lot of its profits on R&D therefore affecting the company’s profitability. The sector as such will be very consistent in terms of growth. Even the sales volume will generally remain to be consistent irrespective of economic recession or booms.


Automobiles v/s Pharmaceuticals

Automobiles and Pharmaceuticals both are comparatively slow growing sectors. Pharma’s always have an upper hand over Automobiles only due to consistency and unaffected profit growth since Pharmaceuticals are defensive sectors. The automobile sector can also tend to saturation over a long period of time.


Metals

Metals are one of the slowest growing sectors. High loans and heavy interest will drain out almost all the profits. Heavy expenses in R&D, lower profit margins due to competition and fluctuations in commodities makes metals one of the worst sectors to put your money into. One of the exceptions is HindZinc, Complete monopoly helps it to increase its profit margin even during commodity meltdowns and it being a zero debt company helps it to retain most of the cash generated, thereby helping the company grow consistently.



Teleservices

Teleservices are comparatively slow growing sector. It is a defensive sector and can be both Price competitive as well as durable competitive business. It is generally volume driven and competition may affect the margins to a small extent. Companies with high debt are usually better to avoid.  


Consumer Non Durables

Consumer Non Durables are Defensive sector and a Durable Competitive Business much in favour of Food Industries. These companies can maintain constant margins as they are durable competitive and over a period of time the increase in volumes will drive up the profits. They aren’t fastest growing sector one can find on the Street but good Consumer Durable as well and  Consumer Non-Durable companies can offer good growth and are generally safe bets.


Auto Ancillaries

Auto Ancillaries are sort of defensive sector. The demand for the Auto-Parts will be there before the sale of automobile and post the sales too; therefore due to constant demand these companies won’t be hugely affected by the recessions, and they generally are good bets and these companies are usually fast growing too.

Conclusion


It is very important to buy a company from a sector which has growth opportunity. If one can find a company in slow growing sectors with an economic moat or a monopoly then it will turn out to be a good investment

Sectors with Primary Preference: Banking Technology, Pharma, Consumer Non-durables

Sectors with Secondary Preference: Automobile, Auto Ancillaries, Teleservices

Sectors with Least Preference: Air Lines, Metals, Realty

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